WHAT would you call a show about a woman who was born a bastard in most people’s eyes, had a father who killed her mother, was sexually abused by her stepfather, thrown out, disinherited, charged as a traitor, imprisoned in a tower, scarred from smallpox, had many men, but supposedly remained a virgin, and who, by the age of 25, had become ruler of a country where no single woman had ever reigned?

If you guessed a soap opera you’d be right. But if you guessed a documentary, you’d also be right.

If you love your history with lots of juice, tonight’s your night when the History Channel airs the first of its four-part, four-hour miniseries, “Elizabeth,” about England’s first queen without-a-husband.

This miniseries is done documentary-style, but instead of constantly focusing on paintings of the time, and battle scenes where they only show running feet and bayonets (what is that about in historical documentaries anyway?), this one actually has recreations with occasional dialogue and actors playing parts.

“Elizabeth” begins with her birth as the daughter of Anne Boelyn and Henry VIII. It would be tough enough to be the child of a man who changed the whole religion of his country so he could marry his mistress (your mother) without having him then chop her head off – all by the time you were three.

After living through the abuse and horror, Queen Elizabeth somehow ascended to the throne in her mid-20’s.

Because she refused to become Catholic herself or to make Catholicism the official religion of her country once again, the Pope proclaimed that killing the queen was not only not a sin, but doing so could earn a guy extra credit with God.

Aside from the constant battles with the Vatican and wars with Catholic countries such as Spain, Elizabeth’s first war was with her own nobles who spent her decades-long reign trying to get her married. She refused.

She knew that marriage would mean that a foreign power would ultimately control England, or worse, a power-hungry English lord would lord it over her. No way, no how, no deal. Somehow she would become “a royal hermaphrodite” – being both king and queen at once.

Clearly she was no pushover. In fact, after stopping one too many rebellions, and routing out one too many traitors in her midst, she declared that all convicted traitors would be hanged until almost dead, then disemboweled while they were still alive, their entrails to be thrown into the fire and then their bodies were to be cut up and scattered.

During her reign, Elizabeth took the country from a bankrupt mess to a rich, cultured country which defeated the Spanish Armada and established the Church of England as the official religion. When necessary she would even kill her own traitorous cousins, like Mary Queen of Scots.

And she learned by their mistakes, too.

If Mary lost it all to love and lust, Elizabeth kept it all by deciding early on that her husband would be England, and her suitors would know their place. They might make it into her bed chamber, but not to her throne.